he insisted they were, quote, local defense forces and call the people's uprising against ukrainian president viktor yanukovych an unconstitutional coup and said they were sitting in a laboratory and running experiments on rats and described anti-government protests, the ones that killed scores of people two week ago an orgy of radicals. putin was nervous, angry, cornered and paranoid, written in the new republic. here was an authoritarian dancing uncomfortably in his new dictator shoes. in the last few years it's something like conventional knowledge in moscow journalistic circles that put. was no longer getting new good information, surrounded by yes men who created a parallel informational universe. indeed, living in a parallel universe seem to be one of the only explanations for putin's perilously irrational behavior. joining me, mark halperin, and from washington, the new york times' white house correspondent and former moscow bureau chief, peter baker. peter, what thoughts are running through putin's head and why he's -- i mean we talk a lot about the history in this region, but a state